GOD'KIN, EDWIN LAWRENCE ( 1831-1902). An American editor and publicist, born in Moyne, County Wicklow, Ireland. He graduated at Queen's College, Belfast, in 1851, and during the Crimean War (1854-56) was correspondent of the London Daily News in Turkey and Russia. In 1856 he came to the United States, where he read law under David D. Field (q.v.), was ad mitted to the bar in 1859, and for several years practiced in New York City. From 1862 until 1865 he was a correspondent of the Daily News and an editorial writer for the New York Times. In 1865 he established and became the editor of the Nation, a week ly periodical, which was fashioned after the London Spectator, and whose proprietorship was assumed in 1866 by himself, J. M. McKim, and F. L. Olmsted (q.v.). In 1881 the Nation was merged with the Evening Post, of which it became the weekly edition, and Godkin was there after an editor and proprietor of the combined publications. As a journalist he devoted little attention to the organization of newspaper ser vice, and specifically was one of the foremost leader writers in the history of the American press. His editorials in the Nation from the first influenced in manifold ways the best thought of the time, and from 1884, previous to which the paper had been avowedly Republican, he made the Evening Post, of which he became editor-in chief in 1883, the leading independent American daily. His style was noteworthy. for its direct
ness, its pith, and a certain effective humor. His critical estimates were singularly, acute and mainly He was a prominent figure in re forms affecting the causes of sound money, of Reconstruction, and of the civil service. In him the idea of public office as a public trust had undoubtedly its chief exponent in the United States. He consistently and severely opposed the `spoils' or close party system in American politics, as well as 'boss' or 'machine' rule in various forms. His fearlessness often exposed him to disapproval, and not seldom to abuse. In prepa ration for the New York City municipal cam paign of 1890, he printed in the Post, with scath ing editorial comment, a series of biographies of Tammany Hall leaders, which resulted in the issuance against him of several warrants of ar rest on charges of criminal libel. The cases were dismissed for lack of prosecution. He received the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University in 1897. He published a History of Hungary, A.D. 300-1850 (1856) ; an excellent work on Govern ment (1871), in the "American Science Series"; and Reflections and Comments, Problems of Mod ern Democracy, and Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy—all valuable collections of papers respectively from the Nation, the Atlantic. and other sources.